Branding Guidelines for Franchises: Balance Local & National Identity

Franchise marketing presents some unique challenges: how do you balance the unique character of your particular location or locations with the national brand identity and brand guidelines? While this can feel daunting for any franchise owner, there are some steps you can take to ensure that your marketing showcases what’s best about your franchise locations while also connecting with the power of the national brand. Towards that end, we’ll go over the following:

• The importance of consistency with both national and local branding guidelines
• Developing and projecting a unique identity for your franchise locations
• Connecting your franchise’s brand with local communities and local customers
• Keeping things consistent across locations and time

Working with National Brand Guidelines for Local Success

Working within the national brand guidelines for your franchise begins with a solid understanding of those guidelines. Different franchise brands have different means of imparting this information and training new franchise owners, so tap into that knowledge base and ensure that you’ve absorbed the information and guidelines they’re working to impart and that you know how to implement them in your business. The strength of a franchise as an entrepreneurial outlet is that you have an existing brand behind you, offering strong brand recognition and an established brand presence. Working with those will increase the potency of your franchise’s location, identity, and local flavor.

Create and Implement a Local Branding and Marketing Plan

Once you’ve ensured your understanding of and compliance with the guidelines from the parent brand, it’s time to develop all the things that make your location unique. This is a multi-part process, involving your franchise location’s branding and marketing, appropriate training for your staff, and open communication between you, your staff, and your customers or clients to ensure that everything’s running smoothly. What makes your franchise location special depends on your approach to your brand and your particular location, but it’s a good idea to write that out, develop a plan to make it a reality, and then ensure that your staff all understand their roles within it. This is also where feedback from your staff is vital; they have an important perspective due to their customer interactions and they can offer ideas that help create your success. Good training and open communication also ensure that your franchise offers a consistent customer experience and brand with every customer visit–a critical part of successful franchise branding on all levels.

Connect Your Branding with the Right Audience 

When you have a branding plan that balances both local and national identity, showcases the unique character of your franchise location, and has effective implementation on all levels of your business, the next step is to project your brand outward. Connecting your brand with the right audience involves proper customer identification and an effective marketing plan. Your parent brand likely has some guidelines for what the target consumer looks like, and you’ll need to marry that with your local knowledge and demographic understanding–incidentally, this is another place where your staff can provide valuable insights. 

When it comes to marketing, you’ll need to work within the guidelines offered by the parent brand at the national level while also connecting with your local marketing. Digital marketing is a robust tool towards this end. By leveraging the power of social media, online marketing tools, and local SEO, you’ll build a local franchise brand presence that showcases all the wonderful and unique things your location offers while also channeling the strength of the nationwide parent brand. This requires a thorough understanding of both your business and the complexities of the digital marketing world, which brings complications and challenges of its own.

Wahha Designs: Digital Marketing Solutions for Your Franchise

Wahha Designs is more than a digital marketing agency. We create authentic digital experiences that reflect the individual needs of our clients. We bring together personal attention with a bleeding-edge understanding of the digital landscape to improve your digital presence and drive more clients and more sales to your franchise. We’ll guide you through the challenges of franchise branding and help you leverage the strengths of your brand and your location to create the success you deserve. Get in touch today for a free initial consultation and let’s explore what we can do for you.